


while our shadows keep watching us

by LuckyDiceKirby



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, M/M, this fic also titled: samot has some Regrets, weirdly enough wine DOESN'T solve all ur problems?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-09
Updated: 2016-12-09
Packaged: 2018-09-07 12:28:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8800849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LuckyDiceKirby/pseuds/LuckyDiceKirby
Summary: Samot has three conversations over wine.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Big Houses by Squalloscope. Someday I'll stop doing the lowercase song lyric title thing but uh, not today!

"I wonder," says Samot, "what made Nothing."

"Nothing made nothing," Samol says. "Boy, that's the whole point."

They're in the forest at the edges of Marielda, outside the house that Samol gave them. Samot leans against the fence, watching the children play. Beside him, Samol sits on a tree stump, picking at the strings of his guitar. A cup of wine is balanced along the fence at Samot's elbow, precarious--but of course, it wouldn't dare to fall in this company.

In truth, Samot is deep in his cups. But drunkenness is different for gods, or perhaps only for him. He can step above it, if he wishes. He still enjoys the feeling that wine gives him, a sense that the world around him is slow and warm.

And knowledge, like spilled wine, is messy and impossible to stop. Maybe that's why Samot likes it so much.

Samol tells him that wine makes him question things that shouldn't be questioned. But someone is always telling Samot that. Never once has he listened. He never will.

"But there must have been _something_ ," says Samot. "Everything has an origin. Even us."

"And what we come from is Nothing. What more is there to know?"

Samot drinks the last dregs of his wine, and puts his glass back down on the fence, already refilled. He laughs. "Everything, of course. Otherwise why are we here?"

"To live," says Samol. He plucks a few strings of his guitar. "To play music. To drink wine in the sun, and watch our children play. To go home at night and light a fire in the hearth, and find other ways to keep ourselves warm."

Samot leans his cheek on his hand. In the yard of the house, Maelgwyn yells. He's badly losing a swordfight to his companion, though he doesn't seem to mind. 

"Sometimes," he says, "sometimes, I wish that could be enough."

Samol stands and claps him on the shoulder. "We all have our own troubles to confront," he says. "You're not alone in that."

Samot smiles. "Whatever you say, old man."

"You say that now, my boy, but someday even you'll be as old as me, and young Maelgwyn will be the one calling you old."

"Nonsense," Samot says. "That's what he'll be calling Samothes."

That night they all have dinner together, lively and boisterous. Samot watches his family around him, warm and content, and he doesn't think about Nothing at all.

-

There's a lake near their house in the forest, and on warm bright days, Samot and Samothes take Maelgwyn there to swim. 

He's very good at it. He's very good at most things. Today, Samothes is in the water with him, splashing at Maelgwyn and laughing. On the shore, Samot pours himself a glass of wine and watches them, an unopened book by his side. The sun glints off the water.

When Samothes returns to Samot's side, leaving their son to tire himself out in the lake, Samot asks him, "Did you mean for the sun to be so beautiful, when you made it?" 

"Hm," Samothes says as he sits down. "I can't say that I thought about it. I wanted there to be light." He looks at Samot. "I don't think truly beautiful things are often planned. They tend to be accidents."

"Or mistakes."

Samothes nudges at Samot with his elbow. "You're calling my sun a mistake?" he says, teasing. "Most would say it's a miracle."

"I suppose it is a miracle. Regardless, your son certainly is," Samot says, nodding to Maelgwyn, who is at present investigating a turtle with a great deal of seriousness and care. 

Samothes laughs, long and loud, head thrown back. Samot drinks his wine, smiling into the rim of his glass. 

It's a nice moment. He does hate to ruin it.

He busies himself with pulling out cheese and fruit from the basket they've brought. "I had another thought," he says. "About the heat and the dark." 

For a second, Samot thinks that Samothes is going to ignore him. He says nothing, at first--instead, he reaches over and takes the wine glass from Samot's hand, drinking deeply.

He gives it back empty. "You're not going to let that go, are you. Even with all this beauty around us."

"Especially with all this beauty," says Samot. He digs his toes into the sand beneath his feet. "Don't you want to keep it? To protect it?"

"Samot," Samothes says, tone heavy. "You have to promise me you won't do anything rash."

Samot summons up his mostly charming smile. He looks up to where Maelgywn has begun building a sandcastle, clumsily but with a solid foundation. "I don't understand how you can't see it," he says. "Inaction can also be rash."

Maelgwyn glances up at them then, grinning, demanding that they come look at his castle. They do. Maelgwyn, at about six years old, can be an imposing figure. 

Samot, like he has so many times before, lets the matter drop. They don't speak of it again that night. 

He's always wondered if perhaps just one more conversation would have been enough. But time is no longer as malleable as it once was. He'll never know.

-

Years and years later, Samot sits in a pub in Velas with his dear friend Fantasmo, and they drink together.

It's not too long after Fantasmo and his companions returned from The City of First Light. Fantasmo, Samot knows, does not often drink, but he seems unsettled by what he's seen.

Samot doesn't blame him; he understands what mortals are like. 

"Tell me," says Samot, two glasses of wine in. "What's troubling you?"

Fantasmo is silent for a long moment. He looks into his glass, as if the wine will hold answers for him. 

Samot waits. He can wait a long time.

"It's nothing," Fantasmo says, finally, his tone and the weight of his words marking him a liar. "It was only thinking of--a colleague of mine. I have not seen her since we returned."

"You're speaking of Sunder Havisham?" 

Fantasmo grimaces, and nods. "We did not part on the most...amiable of terms. I fear that I--well, I fear that I may have made a few--missteps, perhaps."

"Mistakes, you mean."

"Surely not!" Fantasmo takes another gulp of his wine.

Samot can't help but smile. They may be old friends, but Fantasmo still seems so terribly young, sometimes. "Mistakes are an inevitable consequence of life," he says. "Our very existence, some might say, came about because of mistakes. I've certainly made my fair share of them."

"Now that, I find hard to believe," says Fantasmo.

"You didn't know me when I was young. Things were different then. But on the matter of Sunder...I think that, perhaps, an apology would go a long way towards mending things with her. I find that they often do."

"Your...so called 'mistakes'," Fantasmo says. "Did an apology fix them?"

Samot looks down at his wine. "Sometimes," he says, thinking of Severia. "But not for the greatest one, no. I don't think I ever did apologize. There was never time." He looks up. "Hence my advice to you, my friend."

Fantasmo looks uncertain. Samot, who has learned, by now, that it is on occasion appropriate to pick one's battles, changes the subject to lighter things. He asks about the word-eater, and allows Fantasmo a chance at self-aggrandizement; he knows it will make him feel better.

That night, he leaves Fantasmo to stay in the tavern, and walks the streets of Velas, cloaked by the dark. The wine is warm in his blood, but around him, it's beginning to snow.

He wishes that Samothes were here, to drape an arm around his shoulders. Samothes was always hot as a furnace. 

It's funny. Once, Samol called him the boy who apologized. But Samol is an old fool: after all, he raised Samot from shadow, and for what? 

Samol probably has a story about gods and fools. It's been a long time since Samot has seen him, or heard him tell one of his long, winding tales.

Samot turns up his fur collar, and wonders if perhaps he should visit. Take his own advice. 

There's a great deal of business to be done. And it's possible Samol will refuse to see him, after all this time, after everything he's done. But Samol forgave him once. And it can't hurt, Samot supposes, to try. 


End file.
